For several years there has been an increasing trend in the poultry industry to automate various processing of the poultry carcass in an effort to reduce time and labor costs. Examples of machines of this type include the following patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 3,233,282 issued 2/8/66;
U.S. Pat. No. 3,564,644 issued 2/23/73;
U.S. Pat. No. 3,930,282 issued 1/6/76;
U.S. Pat. No. 4,184,229 issued 1/22/80;
U.S. Pat. No. 4,016,624 issued 4/12/77;
U.S. Pat. No. 2,766,477 issued 1/21/53; and
U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,083 issued 4/11/78.
None of these prior references, however, deal with the problem of mechanically filleting the meat portion from a breast section of a poultry product. The poultry industry, in general, and particularly that segment supplying the fast food industry presently relies upon manual filleting of breast sections to supply the poultry meat fillets to customers. Applicant is not aware of any prior automatic, mechanical apparatus or method which separate the meat from the breast section in such a satisfactory manner to warrant the elimination of the conventional manual operations.